At a rally in Virginia on Friday, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney for what he said was a willingness to moderate his positions as the general election neared. "Now that we're 18 days out from the election," Obama said, "mister severely conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding about everything he said over the last year."
Obama then coined the term “Romnesia,” under which he would brand the criticism. The term, easily hashtag-able and just a single world, carries all the elements of a made for social media attack.
Almost as soon as the word Romnesia was uttered, the Obama campaign took to its social media channels to make sure the term spread. On Twitter, the campaign promoted a tweet on the #Romnesia hashtag which helped propel the YouTube video of the speech to over 370,000 views. Subsequent tweets with the #Romnesia hashtag have received thousands of retweets. Since the speech, the Obama campaign’s main twitter account has included #Romenesia in 14 of 28 tweets, exactly 50%.
On Faceboook, the campaign shared two Romnesia themed images, and both spread quickly. One of the images was meant to resemble a medical textbook, defining Romnesia as “a condition affecting Mitt Romney.” In the 'treatment' section, it said "Don't worry- Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions like Romnesia.” The other image displayed a photo of Obama and overlaid part of the speech’s text. Both images have been ‘liked’ over 100,000 times. Combined, they have been shared or commented upon over 40,000 times.
The message spread on Tumblr as well. The Obama campaign posted an excerpt of the speech and a series of animated GIFs portraying the speech on its Tumblr page. “Sometimes I like our President, and sometimes I completely adore him!” wrote one user underneath the speech excerpt. The GIFs, also popular, have been liked or reposted onto other Tumblr users blogs over 16,000 times.
Outside the Obama campaign, others jumped on the term as well. #Romnesia spent much of the day Friday trending on Twitter and it still being tweeted multiple times a minute today.
All told, ‘Romnesia’ feels very much like a ‘made for social media’ attack. Highly shareable due to its succinctness, the Obama campaign went to work making sure it spread far and fast.
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